The present invention is directed to a system (hereinafter referred to as “the WebNum system”), that gives users of both fixed and wireless Internet devices, a method of entering numbers instead of the text characters of Internet Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and other Internet identifiers to access Internet resources and functions, such as Web sites, e-mail services, individual documents or files, location services, etc.
Recently, wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs have been developed with capabilities to access the Internet. Accessing a website via a wireless device has typically been done by the user entering text characters to spell out the Internet URL. Since a phone keypad uses multiple letters for each numeric key, and since most cell phones require the user to change the mode of operation to enter letters instead of numbers, this can be a cumbersome task with a cell phone.
Some wireless devices allow users to assign graphical icons, voice commands, and/or abbreviated names to a limited number of frequently visited web sites, so that users do not have to enter the entire web address for those sites. The storage and resolution of these ‘short-cuts,’ however, is conducted within the wireless device and is therefore limited and non-uniform for multiple users. Thus, when a user uses a different wireless device, the user cannot necessarily use the same shortcuts that he/she has already memorized. Furthermore, this approach to short-cuts does nothing for the user who wants to access a new website for the first time.